The Advanced Docking System for Windows. Wikipedia defines a dock as a user interface feature of a number of operating systems that typically provides a user with a way of launching and switching between applications. The Winstep Nexus Dock is a professional dock for Windows. With Nexus, your most frequently used applications are only a mouse click away - and Nexus turns working with your computer into a fun and exciting experience.Nexus Ultimate is an enhanced version of the free-to-use Nexus dock which is available stand-alone or as a component of Winstep Xtreme (a single easy-to-install package featuring all of Winstep's popular desktop enhancement products for Windows).

Winstep Nexus Ultimate Features:* Display running applications on the dock with task grouping, task filtering and icon customization options.* Display system tray on the dock as single or grouped icons.* Blur-Behind (7/Vista) and colorization of dock backgrounds.* Over 80 special commands such as Sleep, Empty Recycler, CD Control, etc...* Monitor active connections and bandwidth usage with Net Meter module.* Get weather forecast for over 39,000 cities world-wide.* Monitor CPU and RAM usage, multiple mailboxes for incoming mail, and more!* Multiple animated mouse over effects: zoom, swing, bounce and many more!* Live icon reflections and animated water-like effects.* Quickly change icons of shortcuts and running programs by dropping PNG and ICO image files directly into the icon.* Built in support for animated icons.* Minimize windows to the dock.* Multi-monitor support.* Compatible with skins for all 3rd party docks.* Multiple docks.* Ability to group shortcuts into an unlimited number of nested sub-docks.* Categorize applications into user-defined tabs on the Shelf (tabbed dock).* Increase productivity by displaying folders, the Desktop, My Computer, Control Panel and other virtual system folders as tabs on the Shelf.* Reduce clutter by hiding desktop icons and using the Shelf's Desktop tab instead.* One click theme switching via the special Themes tab on the Shelf.* Exclusive modules/widgets (e.g.; battery monitor module).* Even more amazing mouse-over, launch and attention effects.* Unlimited number of clock alarms and reminders.* Customize system tray with high resolution icons.* Automatic installs and updates via the Winstep Update Manager.

Shelf/Tabbed Dock (Nexus Ultimate) Not only being able to hold shortcuts dragged into it, the Winstep Shelf is also capable of displaying the contents of special shell folders such as the Desktop, My Computer, Control Panel, Recent Documents, and so forth... It's even able to display the contents of folders in your hard drive, which can then be manipulated via drag & drop as usual.

The Shelf makes it possible to have a 'clean', uncluttered, desktop with no icons on it whatsoever by having Nexus Ultimate hide the icons on the Desktop - icons that can then be quickly accessed via the Desktop tab. Tabs in the Shelf can also have keyboard shortcuts associated to them to make the Shelf simultaneously come to the foreground and open that particular tab.

Live Icon ReflectionsThe first (and only) Windows dock to feature 'live' icon reflections. Reflections update in real time if the icons animate or change. Size of reflection also user configurable.

Powerful Object-based Drag & Drop Object based interface offers "drag & drop" capabilities that make it simple to manage your applications, files, printers, etc... Use Drag & Drop to move/copy/re-arrange objects from one location to another, to both inside and outside of docks. Drop documents onto dock application objects and have them automatically loaded. You can quickly change the images used by Nexus items simply by drag & dropping your favorite .ICO, .PNG or .TIF file onto the chosen object.

Special Effects Eye Candy is king! Lots of optional special effects such as icons zooming, bouncing, glowing, rocking, swinging, squishing, spinning, exploding, etc, shifting to make room for items about to be dropped, bouncing on application launch, visual feedback for specific actions, incredible 'fluid' effects that make docks and icons behave like liquid surfaces, sound events for when docks collapse and pop up or sub-docks open, and lots more!

More Visual Effects (Nexus Ultimate)With Nexus Ultimate you get even more amazing mouse-over, launch, and attention effects on top of the wide selection already given to you by the free version of the Winstep Nexus dock!

Virtual File System Support Allows you to drag special Explorer objects, like Control Panel items and the My Computer icon, into docks.

Document Thumbnails Documents, pictures and video files dragged to a dock show up as thumbnails for easy identification.

Built in support for animated icons Nexus features built-in support for animated icons. With no need to install 3rd party docklets and full drag and drop support, animated icons in Winstep applications are as easy to use as any other icons: drop the animated icon PNG strip directly into a dock item and the icon will automatically start animating.

Running ApplicationsNexus is a complete taskbar replacement with the ability to display running applications on the dock - with Windows 7 "Superbar" abilities, including Aeropeek, even on Windows XP.

Tray Icon Customization (Nexus Ultimate)System tray icons are originally small 16x16 icons, and can look very blurry when displayed on the dock at larger sizes. Nexus Ultimate allows you to customize tray icons with high-resolution alternatives to solve this problem, with a set of high-resolution images for system tray icons being included in the application.

Auto-Hide Docks attached to screen edges can auto-hide onto the screen edge and pop up on demand.

Auto-Collapse Floating docks (i.e. docks not attached to a screen edge) can collapse into a single control tile and un-collapse on demand.

Full Multi-Monitor Support Docks can be docked to any screen edge or left floating on any monitor.

In-Dock Modules/Docklets Nexus features eight useful modules (widgets) such as a talking Digital/Analog Clock that synchronizes your time with time servers on the internet, a Recycler, an Email Checker that supports SSL and multiple email accounts, a Weather Module, CPU, Net and RAM Meters and Wanda, a 'fortune cookie' animated fish!

Battery Monitor (Nexus Ultimate)Nexus Ultimate offers you an additional UPS/Battery Monitor module, with many more modules exclusive to Nexus Ultimate and Winstep Xtreme coming soon! The UPS/Battery Monitor module is capable of logging power events and executing user-specified actions when battery levels reach a certain threshold.

Internal CommandsInternal commands are special commands that you can add to the dock as shortcuts: Hibernate, Power Off Monitor, Empty Recycler, Show Start Menu, Language Bar, CD Control, Lookup IP address and over 80 more!

Clock Alarms and Task SchedulerClock module associated alarms allow you to display pop-up reminders, wake you up with music or run programs at specific times, once or periodically. The free version of Nexus supports a single alarm, while Nexus Ultimate supports an unlimited number of alarms.

Keyboard Accelerators Docks can be brought to the foreground and dock items launched through user-specified hotkeys.

PNG, ICO and TIF File Support Supports the use of PNG as well as TIF and ICO files for object images and bitmaps.

Complete Customization Virtually every aspect of every dock is customizable: from icon size, to magnification size, to dock behavior.

Quality And Performance Tested Nexus has undergone extensive testing by thousands of dedicated users. This testing continues as part of our ongoing efforts to provide top quality software to our customers.

What's New in Version 16.9:* Added a 'View Change Log' button to the Version Information dialog (which opens when you click the version number in the top right corner of the About tab in Preferences). Clicking the button opens another dialog which interfaces with the history files and makes it easier to see the additions and bug fixes in each release.* Added a 'Check Internet Connection' button to the Troubleshooting dialog in Preferences, to help diagnose Internet communication problems.* The Shelf icon cache is no longer destroyed when changing drive media or adding/removing drives.* After more than a decade, NOAA discontinued the web site from where METAR information was retrieved. Updated URLs and parsing code so METAR information is now successfuly retrieved from www.aviationweather.gov.* The Battery module 'Overlap information on battery icon' setting can now be independently set for vertical and horizontal styles.* Some applications (such as Firefox or UWP apps) were wrongly being identified as full screen when maximized on monitors without a taskbar or with a auto-hide taskbar. This caused screen edge bumps, etc, to be temporarily ignored (edge bumps are disabled so they do not activate accidentally when the user is playing a full screen game, for instance).* Fixed a couple of instances where the CD Control icon or drive icons in a Drives tab of the Shelf might not be properly updated after a media or drive change.* The 'Hide for maximized applications' setting was also triggering the dock to hide if you clicked on the Desktop.* Changes to the default Weather feed source URLs were not being applied until weather cache information became stale.* The Email Checker failed on IMAP servers that sent a CAPABILITY response just after login or didn't add OK to the STATUS command response.